{"id":6310,"date":"2021-08-20T00:03:17","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T22:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/the-vara-of-the-assumption-of-messina\/"},"modified":"2021-11-23T15:28:34","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T14:28:34","slug":"the-vara-of-the-assumption-of-messina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-vare-in-sicily\/the-vara-of-the-assumption-of-messina\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vara of the Assumption of Messina"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The Vara of the Assumption of Messina <\/h1>\n<div class=\"testo\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The Feast of the Assumption of <a href=\"\/en\/territories\/regional-routes\/south-eastern-sicily\/1693-a-disastrous-earthquake\/messina\/\" title=\"Messina\">Messina<\/a> is celebrated in mid-August and culminates with the procession of the <a href=\"#\" class=\"tooltip yellow-tooltip\"><em>Vara<\/em><span>The Italian equivalent (<em>fercolo<\/em>) of the word <em>vara<\/em> is derived from the Latin and indicates the act of bringing a statue of Christ, the Virgin Mary or a saint for worship. The term is translated as the word <em>bara<\/em>, &#8220;coffin&#8221;, although by extension it means the whole processional machine designed to carry the sacred bodies or, in the case of Holy Week, the statuary groups of the Passion in procession.<\/span><\/a>, the Baroque machine symbolizing the Assumption of Mary into heaven. It is believed that originally the <em>Madonna di Messina<\/em> was depicted as an equestrian statue on horseback escorted by members of the Senate during the national festival of mid-August. It is during the sixteenth century that the pageant of the Assumption became a devotional &#8220;machine&#8221;, apparently derived from the adaptation of a triumphal chariot prepared to accommodate the triumphal entry into the city of <a href=\"\/en\/territories\/urban-routes\/lecce\/other-works\/charles-v-of-habsburg\/\" title=\"Charles V of Habsburg\">Charles V<\/a> (1535). The oldest depiction of the <em>Vara<\/em> is contained in the <em>Iconology of the Glorious Virgin<\/em> by Placido Samperi (published in Messina in 1644), which portrays her along with an enigmatic camel. The <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-vare-in-sicily\/the-vara-of-the-assumption-of-messina\/the-vara-of-messina\/\" title=\"The Vara of Messina\"><em>Vara<\/em> of Messina<\/a> is one of the most famous and ancient devotional wagons in Europe. It is an eight ton apparatus that grows in height (for almost fourteen metres) a great animated tale of the death and ascent to heaven of the Virgin: an interweaving of movements and ornaments, Baroque theatricality and evangelical teaching. An ancient and equally impressive imitation is still carried in procession in the Calabrian town of <a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-vare-in-sicily\/the-vara-of-the-assumption-of-messina\/the-varia-of-palmi-reggio-calabria\/\" title=\"The Varia of Palmi (Reggio Calabria)\">Palmi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"\/en\/themes\/festivals\/the-vare-in-sicily\/\" title=\"The Vare in Sicily\">&lt;&lt;&lt;&#8212;back to the Vare in Sicily<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Vara of the Assumption of Messina The Feast of the Assumption of Messina is celebrated in mid-August and culminates with the procession of the VaraThe Italian equivalent (fercolo) of the word vara is derived from the Latin and indicates the act of bringing a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":6592,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6310","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11743,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6310\/revisions\/11743"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalhistory.unite.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}